The southern lands looked like this between 121 MYA, when Madagascar reached its current position, and 88 MYA, when India separated from Madagascar and moved north to collide with Asia.

Ancestors of some modern plants and animals flourished on Madagascar before it became isolated. Others arrived on rare occasions over many millions of years. Most recently, people have introduced foreign plants and animals and wiped out some of the native ones. The fossil record in Madagascar is very sparse with almost nothing known between subfossils a few thousand years old and Late Cretaceous remains of dinosaurs and other organisms of that period.